The Other Guggenheim Abu Dhabi?

Architecture buffs who missed the opportunity to spend a night in the Guggenheim last fall may soon get a second chance—well, sort of. The winning design for Abu Dhabi’s five-star Helix Hotel, by Leeser Architecture, includes a spiraling floor plate that looks like a cousin of Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous snail-shell structure. But, of course, the Helix—which is the centerpiece of a new waterfront development adjacent to Zaha Hadid’s dune-like Sheikh Zayed Bridge—boasts a legion of luxury amenities, standout among them a rooftop deck with glass-bottom swimming pool (so you can admire your fellow guests’ bikini bods from eight stories below). Leeser is also working with Atelier Ten on sustainable features like an interior-cooling waterfall and GROW cladding on the outside surface. If this all sounds a tad bit too ambitious for the current recessionary climate, fear not: even with neighboring Dubai’s economy in free fall, Abu Dhabi is forging ahead with several high-profile building projects, including its very own, for-real branch of the Guggenheim, by the loose-lipped Frank Gehry.